It has been established by many articles that coral bleaching is not stopping but increasing. Which means that coral reef mortality is increasing also. Why the survival of coral reefs and bleaching are related is because coral reef bleaching means the loss of symbiotic algae. At a specific temperature the algae helping coral survive die. As a result, the coral reef stops tissue growth, skeletal growth, and reproduction because the algae are the reefs source of nutrition. The reefs can survive a brief bleaching because their larvae would not have died off. The increase of coral reef mortality is an important issue because these reefs are home and the food source to schools of big and little fish. Once a reef dies and starts to break down, the fish move to different coral reefs or die off also. The fishing moving or dying affects humans greatly. Without fish,  these issues will continue to become worse until the reef recovers but that could happen in a century or two. Climate change is huge reason why the coral reefs are dying but is not the only reason, El Niño or La Niña, marine protection, fisheries, and the rising baseline of water temperatures. Also, the increase of CO₂ emissions because it affects the skeletal growth of coral. In this article, “Coral Bleaching and Global Climate Change: Scientific Finding and Policy Recommendation,” the researchers implore for more research because the reefs would be able to survive climate change if they are able to acclimate to the rising heat. If there is more research than they will have better ideas on how to make conservation management policy better. Interestingly, the researchers suggest a better policy to reduce CO₂ emission. These policies will benefit coastal communities because bleaching affects the livelihood of those communities that rely on fish for subsistence or income either as food or tourism because fish rely on coral reefs to survive.

Reaser, J. K., Pomerance, R., and Thomas, P. O. (2000) Coral Bleaching and Global Climate Change: Scientific Finding and Policy Recommendations. Conservation Biology, 14(5):1500-1511.